By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

Professor Melissa Harris-Perry has an MSNBC show and a byline in The Nation as “Sister Citizen.” But what would the output of a “sista citizen” look like? Would it extol and praise the Great Man, excusing him from responsibilities and his own promises, or would it ask him, and the rest of us hard questions? What's the difference between a citizen and a cheerleader?

By BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

For those who don't know the word, a courtier is a person who hangs out in a royal court or the company of some Great Man to compete for and enjoy his favor. Some of every president's advisors and associates are courtiers. So also are the people who used to hang around Mike Tyson or Floyd Mayweather so that every time the champ ordered a cheeseburger they could say “Cheeseburger! Get the champ a cheeseburger! That's right champ!”

Melissa Harris-Perry's latest piece in the Nation, titled What Difference Would Obama's Re-Election Make to Black Americans? is far from the worst piece of sycophantic fluff produced by the hangers on who infest our black political class these days. It's mercifully brief and well written. But it powerfully illustrates the depths to which some leading black intellectuals feel obliged to sink to keep their perks and further their careers.

The answers Harris-Perry offers to her title question are that Obama is a Democrat and blacks do better under Democrats than they do Republicans, and that of course he's black. “For African-Americans,” Harris-Perry says, “having a black president matters in terms not fully captured by policy outcomes.” In other words, for Harris-Perry Obama's center-right policies of war, austerity and privatization of essential services like the public schools have and ought to have no bearing on his black support. Thus freed from having to analyze the policies, the lady can descend into hagiography:

“No matter what policies he pursues, the president’s racialized embodiment stands as a symbol of triumphant black achievement. By embodying the American state in blackness, President Obama stitches together the double consciousness identified by W.E.B. Du Bois: “two souls, two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.” For many black observers, there is a certain wonder in the simple reality that President Obama has not been rent in two by the sheer force of embodying both blackness and Americanness.”

While Harris-Perry shies away from examining the actual impact of her Great Man's policies, or holding him accountable to his own promises and the needs of millions who voted for him, she takes quite seriously her courtier's duty to make the Great Man at ease. She recounts that when she sat down to do an Oval Office interview with the president for Ebony magazine she was pleased that she was able to make the president laugh. For Harris-Perry apparently that was the high point of it all.

But is making the Great Man chuckle really the best we can expect from our marquee black intellectuals these days? Were there just no difficult questions to be addressed, no issues upon which the president has been less than truthful or forthcoming about till now.

Did Harris-Perry ask about the president's policy of jailing whistle blowers, or his torture of Bradley Manning, or why he made bankers who bet against their own bad loans whole but has failed to rescue hundreds of thousands of foreclosed, and often black homeowners? Did she ask why the president can't or won't do a WPA-style program like President Roosevelt in the 1930s to dig subway tunnels or create green jobs, or why he continues to dodge climate change negotiations, champion nukes and “clean coal” and hasn't stopped the fruitless and destructive war on drugs? Not likely, as Harris-Perry has already told us that policy is a lot less important than his being a Democrat with “two warring ideals in one dark body...” and all that.

The Harris-Perry byline in the Nation is “Sister Citizen”. But you really cannot be a citizen and a courtier at the same time. Citizens serve the people and ask hard questions. Courtiers serve themselves by serving the court of some Great Man.

Alice Walker is a lot closer to being a real Sister Citizen than Harris-Perry will ever likely get. Walker is unafraid to pose difficult, and for the powers that be, uncomfortable questions. Her poem “Democratic Womanism, read in a September 28 Democracy Now interview begins...

You ask me why I smilewhen you tell me you intendin the coming national electionsto hold your noseand vote for the lesser of two evils.There are more than two evils out there,is one reason I smile....”

The rest is well worth reading. Though Walker did gush through an unconditional “...it's so beautiful to have a pretty brown family in that big White House...” endorsement of the president back in 2008, the lady is no courtier. Walker put herself in harm's way,on one of the relief boats to occupied Gaza, the world's largest open air prison, enclosed and operated with gigantic US support by what Romney and Obama agree is the United States' “most steadfast democratic ally in the Middle East.”

Recent polls cited in Ha'aretz, the Israeli newspaper of record, reveal most Israelis think an apartheid state is OK, and describing it as that is all right as well, as long as they get to be on top and Arabs are on the bottom. A real sista citizen would have a deep problem yukking it up, even with a black president who backed and bankrolled apartheid with her tax money and in her name anyplace on earth.

If Ebony magazine commissioned a real sista citizen in the tradition of Alice Walker to interview President Obama, the result would be something really worth readying. For its part, The Nation needs to reconsider Harris-Perry's byline. She's no sista citizen. She's a sister, but a cheerleader, a courtier. A sista courtier.

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report. He lives and works near Marietta GA and is a member of the state committee of the Georgia Green Party. He can be reached via this site's contact page, or at [email protected].

21 Comments

Where "credit is due" is that Melissa is encapsulating the sickness and mental illness of roughly 95-98% of the Black population. It's precisely why you can't tell them shit about Obama that's negative. It's because they "feel" his slights and insults, those things cut deeper into their bone marrow than Obama's. Obama wasn't mad at Tripp (sic) Romney telling a radio host he wanted to punch him, but Lord Have Mercy, it got ol Steve Harvey (and the 98%) hopping mad. I'm surprised he didn't get any death threats. LOL

Here's the line that is absolutely, truly PRICELESS!:

No matter what policies he pursues, the president’s racialized embodiment stands as a symbol of triumphant black achievement .

Damn Bruce. I suppose if my father beats me from 6 years old to 15 and commits incest against my sister, I suppose NO MATTER WHAT HE PURSUES... I suppose that despite the fact he might be a worthless, trifling M**F**r, doesn't matter, as long as symbolically he's my father. It's all good in the hood?

Yall have to really understand how much I'm struggling not to vote for Obama, because if he doesn't win, Melissa's theory can't be put to the test. And yall know much badly I want to see the litmus test. I suppose even if Obama put Negroes who riot because he rations guvmint cheese or cuts food stamps in GITMO or better yet drone their asses, he'd still remain a symbol of triumphant Black achievement? Damn, I almost feel like striking up a verse of "God Save the (King)."

Bruce, you gotta give Melissa credit, bitch ain't saying shit SUBSTANTIVELY, with her slightly sexy-ass lisp, but she damn sho done correctly psychoanalyzed 95-98% of the Negroes sleep walking in the US of A. If the Oligarchy had any goddamn sense, they'd put Colin Powell in charge of Halliburton, that be another historical first too for yall Negroes to crow about. LOL Maybe I'd give yall a Zimmerman conviction also to ease the pain, sounds like a good tradeoff, doesn't it???

If courtier is male, and you're talking about two women, wouldn't "courtesan" be the word? But I don't think you want to go there... Something about woman vs woman theme bothers me. even though you make your point... I very much like Alice Walker's work. Her daughter, Rebecca, wrote an autobio- nobody is a total hero to one's kid, sigh. Alice Walker wrote (and said, on Democracy Now) a lovely tribute about Howard Zinn at the time of his death.

The BMC as you call them are bought and paid for by the Zionist that control ALL of America. White people too are in the dock as well by following the Jewish Left misleaders like the racist Noam Chomsky who put up his "grandfatherly" front. However you don't see BAR going after these phonies -- only black ones. BAR failed to call out Amy Goodman's cheerleading for the Zionist agenda especially against Libya. BAR choose to blame Goodman's underlings.

Black as well as White poltics are under the control of the Jews and BAR is too afraid or complicit in failing to confront this problem.

It's great that Walker is willing to criticize Obama a little, but really, she's just saying that she agrees with his goal, which she says is peace, and only disagrees with his methods. That isn't just dangerously naive, it seems to me. Isn't it willfully naive? I think it is.

Also, why must we continue to speak of the best human qualities as inherently female? Compassion? Caring? Giving? There is something deeply wrong with this point of view, isn't there? Shouldn't we speak of these qualities as being as much masculine as feminine? Wouldn't that make more sense? What sense does it make to expect good qualites from men if we assume that such qualities are not inherently masculine?

and that's a good thing, because men are asses. I'm one of the few exceptions. And increasingly women are taking on their characteristics, ask Evelyn Lozado, if you don't believe me. Yall use the term bitch 10X more than me. LOL

Walker is neither bewitched nor willfully naive. She's simply coopted and complacent as most Black folks are w/r/t Obama. I would say intellectually lazy, but I don't believe that, not in her case, she's way too bright, though that statement does apply to practically all other Blacks infactuated with the Big O.

Walker is simply afraid to speak truth to power, to upset the apple cart, so she criticizes Obama "just a little." She probably realizes a full frontal assault on him means she gets ostracized and spells financial ruin for her. And perhaps, in an attempt to cut her some slack, she has nothing to gain from it? Can you blame her?

After penning her "love letter" to him in 08 perhaps it would be either a bit embarassing or bring to much exposure to herself if she were more harsh in her criticisms. She would have to explain the juxtaposition (and Ebony and Essence would probably ban future puff pieces of her).

Maybe at this point in her life it ain't worth the fight? I mean look at how much traction we all make from criticizing him?

By the way did anyone notice that during the so-called Foreign Policy Debate no one brought up the Ha'retz poll? I mean what sort of sickness do we demonstrate in talking about drawing a "redline" for an apartheid state? Hell we may as well have drawn a red line for F.W de Klerk or Pik Botha. Should have bombed the ANC on their behalf.

This is the thing that kills me about so-called Christians, especially the Black ones. I don't have high standards for the other ones, well... really none of them anymore. I get so tired of Blacks going to Jerusalem and acting as if they saw the face of God herself and act oblivious to the policies of Israel, being "willfully naive" in not comprehening what kind of country they are really visiting. The juxtaposition between myth and reality is too plain to see. Just like Walker talking about Obama wanting world peace. That's pure bullshit for anyone with critical thinking skills. Walker sounds just like one of my female friends who believes he has "good intentions." Really? Speaking of the Bible, that so many claim to embrace, what I remember from Sunday school and when I wasn't sleeping in church was something about:

"You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?"

Damn what you tell me, what are you doing? This also illustrates my problem with political correctness. Don't sugarcoat things to make be think "you got it." Don't piss on my head.... and tell me its raining.

3} That Ms Walker has dis-avowed her own daughter, Rebekka, after Rebekka at age 39 - 40 decided she wanted to be a mother & stay w her son's father to help raise him. IMO this, along w point-1, is a bit much to swallow. [PS: The issue can't be that Rebekka's son's father is perhaps white {I don't know what his back-ground is} because Rebekka's own father is white & Jewish.]

Radio show on Wednesday. Said he was a field slave sitting by the wood pile scratching himself. While she was inside in the Big House with the master (Obama). Wow! I was stunned by this delusion, but then read this piece.

While I was making the bed, I realized what the device "Harris-Perry VS Walker" reminded me of. The reply by beverly and comment by eppie got me to thinking I needed to fill in my reason. The idea of "woman VS woman" reminded me of women competing with women for the approval of men, and men encouraging it, which I became aware of in the 1970s. (There are still men urging women against women in their fear of women's equality, a target is often feminists.)

Women getting equality with men still scares some men - not Mr. Dixon, I add, in case anyone might misunderstand.) Generalizations, about women could fall under some part of this category: for ex. my mother thought a man was giving her a compliment when he said, "You think like a man" - no, what he was really saying was that women aren't as smart as men and she was an exception.

A note about sources: When you see an odd accusation and claims about a feminist, note the source. Once more, I suggest James Carroll's Constantine's Sword to understand the history and the root of some of the accusations about Jews, which go back a long time. The "extras"-linking in feminists, is newer in time and more rare.

UPDATE:wishing all a safe, dry, couple of days as storm goes through the Northeast. I have never been called Sandy.

Update 2: So far, we're OK up here (Upper West Side); lost internet connection for 24 hours yesterday. It's hard for many people; very sad. There are people stranded in high rise public housing without electricity, especially disabled and elders, in Manhattan. There's a lot of mess and hardship in surrounding areas. A good overnight show was Tony Paige on WFAN, adding people calls about surviving and their observations in the tristate area, in addition to slamming the Mayor for insisting the Marathon will go on this weekend. New Yorkers seem resilient and full of humor. A postal worker called in, from Staten Island, I think, who said he was without electric power and didn't want to leave his wife and kids, so he called in and said he wanted to take a couple of vacation days. He was told that he coldn't and wouldn't get paid. He was not going in, he said. Yet, the small post office near my house, a "finance station" (I don't know what that means, but I have my p.o.box there.) has been closed for two or three days and there's a sign on the door saying "finance stations will be closed". My dad was a mailman, my aunt (my mom's sister) was a postal clerk and a cousin by marriage worked for the p o -

I was surprised that no one corrected a big error in NPR by the chief political analyst on Tuesday night (on John Hockenberry's roundup): he incorrectly stated that the NYC Mayoral election was postponed in 2001after/due to Sept.11 - it was the Primary that was delayed, NOT the election. The host of the show did not correct him, neither did any following voices. It's symptomatic of either ignorance or not wanting to correct another, the latter happens often on NPR.

What follows is a fact sheet about Gloria Steinem’s operations against the various social and political movements in America, particularly her role in creating a hateful and virulent strain of Black feminism that attacks Black men while partnering with the white establishment.

Gloria Steinem first came across the radar of Black men in 1978 when Steinem put a book called “Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman” on the cover of Ms. Magazine, the magazine which she controlled. The book was “written” by a Black “feminist” and “activist” named Micele Wallace who came out of nowhere. Wallace was in her early twenties at the time, yet she was being touted as the “leader” of Black feminism. In the book, Wallace called abolitionists like Harriet Tubman and Sojouner Truth “ugly” and “stupid” for supporting Black men. She called Black Revolutionaries “chauvinist macho pigs” and advised Black women to “go it alone.” Gloria Steinem said that Wallace’s book would “define the future of Black relationships” and she pushed hard to make sure the book received massive publicity. Gloria Steinem’s work triggered a flood of “Hate Black Men” books and films that continues to this day. Needless to say, some were quite suspicious of Ms. Magazine and Gloria Steinem. Why was Steinem sticking her nose into the affairs of the Black community? So people started doing some research on Steinem. When it came out that Gloria Steinem was probably the ghost writer of the book with Michele Wallace’s name on it, Wallace had a nervous breakdown and went into hiding for two years. However, the damage was already done and the “Hate Black Men” movement was off and running.

But the research into Gloria Steinem’s background continued. What follows is the findings of many different researchers.

BOTTOM LINE: The so-called “Black Feminist” movement was created and manipulated by the CIA from the very beginning. The only difference between Black Revolutionaries and Black Feminist on this issue is that the Black Revolutionaries KNOW they were infiltrated and manipulated—But Black Feminist are still unwilling to admit that they were infiltrated and manipulated, largely because they are highly invested in the hateful brand of Black feminism. As a result, the “Hate Black Men” movement has become MORE THAN just a political point a view: It is now a central part of the CULTURE of Black women and this fact has led to the destruction of the Black Revolution and the complete distortion of Black relationships. And the CIA had a direct hand in creating this situation.

It is quite obvious that Mr, Dixon failed to do his due diligence as a journalist before heaping praises on Ms. Walker whose made her money kissing up to Zionism as it attacked Black Males and tried to sow dissension between black men and women.

Gloria Steinem also identified and targeted Alice Walker in the early 1960’s. She befriended Alice Walker and paid for Alice Walker to come to the CIA-manipulated “student festival” in Vienna. Alice Walker would later become the foremost writer of anti-Black male hate books— all of which were funded by money funneled to her publishers by the CIA.

seems Obama's "riff" with Benji and Israel is just more of his lying, conniving 3-card mollyisms, here's what one of the Zionists in Chief, Dennis Ross said. Plus remember, Obama himself said during the "discussions" that he has granted Israel unprecedented intelligence access.

Nothing could be further from the truth, insists Ross, who says that Obama has supported Israel to a level that is entirely “without precedent” and that he has “never seen anything like” the lengths to which Obama will go to satisfy Israel’s government.

In the interview, the full version of which will be published Tuesday, Ross denies claims that he has refrained from openly campaigning for Obama because he wasn’t happy with him. Rather, Ross says his role at WINEP precludes him campaigning for anyone.

You say it great. It's fascinating who takes it personally when a comment about sexism is made. Yesterday*, my spouse and I watched the DVD of "Made in Dagenham" about the 1968 strike by women "machinists" (sweat shop seat fabric sewers) workers at the Ford motor plant in Dagenham, England. It was very white working class. (I wonder what the population of England was like in 1968, if it was accurately reflected in the English film.) At the end of the film, two facts appeared on the screen: In 1970, the English Parliament passed an Equal Pay Law and "shortly after" most other industrialized countries followed in passing an Equal Pay Law for women. I did not know that. I did know that this country does not have an Equal Pay Law and women still do not make the same wages as men in the same jobs. *My spouse was home because the CUNY schools, including the one where he works, and the public schools were and are closed again today due to superstorm Sandy (the days will be made up by the colleges later in the term). He liked the film, saying it was a really good movie (even though he loves action films).

Your full of shit. No one but some radical feminist would allege I've written women-hating comments here.

I never have, and if I did, you can be damn sure I would'nt run from it.

Don't take yourself to seriously, I don't. Hence your failure to comprehend, "men are assholes" was a tribute to women's uniqueness. "I'm the exception" is stated in jest. The people who are familiar with me KNOW THAT, you ain't and don't.

I referred to the universal power as feminine, your lack of reading comprehension allowed that to slip by you. Read into my words what you like, I could care less. I don't have to prove a damn thing to you. I know how I treat women, and its with more respect than you treat yourselves.

I don't and won't subscribe to political correctness. Feminism has been an abject failure just like Civil Rights. All one has to do is turn on the idiot box and see you call yourselves bitches and hoes, scheme and plot against one another, and fight like frat boys. Disgraceful. More and more of you carry yourselves like men or hood rats, not ladies. Those comments have made too many off you rich and famous...though rich and irrelevant in my view.

Of course women have been oppressed throughout history, but you Feminists ain't done shit to staunch it. Blame men all you want but the "liberation" of some of you, not all, has done nothing but set you back 100 years. Because you exercise your freedom like frat boys and hood rats.

Your vaunted Gloria Steinman was a CIA shill. I (we) call it like we see it. The truth hurts sometimes, deal with it.

Your hyper-sensitivity blinds you to objective facts and critical thinking, the same disease that inflict the Obamabots.

First of all, no one here has "attacked women," we've only attacked shitty politics or concepts. If they happen to be the shitty politics or concepts held by women, or Blacks, or gays or whomever, so be it. You want equal opportunity? Then damnit you get equal criticism. Women are one of the most fantastic gifts God gave us, very precious in my sight and life, but they are no more beyond scrutiny than anybody else. Last week BAR jumped on the Black Political Class and how their Ghetto Politics has not lifted up those in the ghetto.

Obviously, Identify Politics don't get much traction here. I could give a damn about one's sexuality, sexual orientation, ethnicity, skin color, or what have you. It's obvious after 4 years of Obama it don't mean shit. I read a brother's comment at Chris Floyd's Empire Burlesque blog the other day, disgusted that Obama could codify his executive authority to murder anyone including Americans at his discretion, and disgusted that Obama ain't said shit about the hundreds of Black men killing each other in his hometown of Chicago... he called him a Punk, I concur.

In the words of Tony Brown, "I'm an equal opportunity ass-kicker." So here goes......read and analyze for yourself. For the record, to my recollection, and its been damn near 1.5 years since I started back posting, BAR doesn't typically riff on feminism frankly nobody does, It died in the hands of its inventors. In fact, I didn't see any one at the Democratic Convention calling themselves a feminist. Was anybody from NOW even a speaker as in campaigns past? If so, I missed it. Seems feminism is a relic of the past, just like integration and "Civil Rights" is. Don't blame me, don't blame men, blame it on your sellout feminist sisters, just like I blame it on the sellout "Civil Rights" brothers.

In 2007 he told Planned Parenthood that he would. However, after he became president—with a supermajority in Congress, natch—he walked that back. “Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not highest [sic] legislative priority,” he said in April 2009. “I believe that women should have the right to choose. But I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that’s—that’s where I’m going to focus.”

The White House ordered Democratic leaders in Congress to kill the Freedom of Choice Act. FOCA has never been introduced under Obama.

Romney and Obama are continuing their parties’ cynical posturing on abortion. Knowing that abortion is popular, Republicans rile up their right-wing misogynist base with loud rhetoric and minor legislative initiatives that fall way short of a federal ban.

Democrats, who exploit the fear that a right-wing Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade, would lose their leverage over pro-choicers if they legalized abortion.

So, if you’re a pro-choice voter, if abortion rights is the main reason you’re voting for Obama, remember two facts:

First, only 15% of abortion rights is at risk.

Second, when Obama had the political capital and the Congressional backing to legalize abortion once and for all, he sold you out.

Damn Dog! I just got around to checking your link and I said to myself, "Oh no he di ent."

No wonder you got us cast as women haters I didn't know you had the famous uppercut scene on the post. I just checked out.

You can't get mad at the young lady now, she simply been watching too much Evelyn Lozado and Basketball Wives, Real Housewives of New Jersey, and Snookie, fighting all dem bitches and hos, that's her defense. "Lifetime Channel made me do it." LOL

Now I don't think Bruh Man should have Mike Tyson'ed her, but you know what, people get shot and killed over lesser shit.

Jesse Jackson Calls for Clinton Pardon But None For Manning, Shakur, Peltier or Political Prisoners

by the Real News Network

Rev. Jackson displays loyalty only to himself and his patrons. In his eyes political prisoners like Mutulu Shakur, Leonard Peltier, Chelsea Manning or Rev. Edward Pinkneydon't deserve pardons, but Hillary Clinton does.

Latest Black Agenda Radio Commentaries

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

In a decade on the House Financial Services Committee Keith Ellison hasn’t targeted the credit card racketeers, or the banksters who flooded the market with predatory home and student loans or federal officials who refuse to relieve underwater homeowners. Democratic party leaders need another empty black face to front the DNC, someone who...

A Black Agenda Radio Commentary by Bruce A. Dixon

Under President Obama, Democrats threw away their mandate to fight for health care for. Instead they let insurance companies concoct Obamacare, sketchy policies, skimpy coverage, high deductibles and co-pays for half the uninsured and empty promises for the other half. A Gallup Poll confirms that 58% of Americans want to see Obamacare replaced with a single...

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

Are most Americans warlike, or are they just easily misled into going along with the War Party that dominates both halves of the duopoly? In a certain sense, the distinction doesn’t matter. Most American don’t care enough about the lives of the millions of victims of U.S. empire to do much of anything to save them. And, if they voted for Hillary...

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The capitalist ruling class is frightened, for good reason: the empire cannot peacefully contain the rising economic powers of the South and East. “The Lords of Capital know there is no future for them in a world where the dollar is not supreme and where Wall Street’s stocks, bonds and derivatives are not backed by the full weight of unchallenged...

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

The International Criminal Court has a worldwide jurisdiction, but only indicts Africans. Yet, it has taken 14 years for African nations -- first Burundi, and now South Africa -- to begin quitting this African Jim Crow Court, “a tool of the United States and the former colonial powers.” Other African nations are expected to begin the process of...

by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon

After 8 years of the first black president, it’s time to take stock of what we’ve won and lost, what’s changed and not. Today we look at the Obama administration’s abysmal record on corporate crime, in which Democrats went far beyond the atrocities of their Republican colleagues to protect and immunize corporate thieves from prosecution or lawsuits from their victims.